Economics

August 18, 2017

What did John Calvin think about economics?

“It is odd to call someone so famous an ‘underrated thinker’ but indeed Calvin is,” says economist Tyler Cowen. One of the reasons Calvin is so underrated is that he is so often misunderstood. Continue Reading...

August 17, 2017

How a struggling widow became a farmer, welder, and seamstress

After losing her husband, Tinashe Butau of Zimbabwe didn’t know what to do. She was now a single mother with four children to feed, and she needed to find a way to provide. Continue Reading...

August 15, 2017

Value investing: Restoring ownership and ethics to investment

In today’s global economy, it can be easy to feel like robotic worker bees or petty consumer fleas in a big, blurry economic order. The feeling is understandable. Value creation, even at its largest margins, is increasingly difficult to spot. Continue Reading...

August 10, 2017

Brains and brawn: Does manual labor belong in the modern economy?

As economic prosperity continues to spread, and as the American economy completes its transition into the age of information, manual labor is increasingly cast down in the popular imagination. When our youth navigate and graduate from high school, they receive a range of pressures to attend four-year colleges and pursue various “white-collar” careers, whether in finance or law or tech or the academy. Continue Reading...

August 08, 2017

Solving for inefficiencies: Why a law firm is hiring social workers

Growing up on the east side of Michigan, I still remember the jingle for the law offices of Sam Bernstein. How could I not? The commercials were everywhere and so were the faces of him and, later on, his children who joined the law firm. Continue Reading...

August 07, 2017

Why the culture matters for economic flourishing

“Moral ecology is the new frontier of political economy: the culture in which the free society thrives — or destroys itself.” –Michael Novak In assessing and addressing the economic issues of the day, we tend to look first to tangible or mathematical solutions, cutting and re-cutting various economic pies as we ponder different policies and pathways to higher employment, better wages, and all-around material prosperity. Continue Reading...

July 28, 2017

Access to the pond: The global poor already know how to fish

In assessing solutions to global poverty, it can be easy to counter the failures of foreign aid by focusing only on the problems with viewing handouts as a path to economic development (there are many). Continue Reading...

July 26, 2017

The political implications of bitcoin

Prior to the publication of John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, balanced budgets reflected the received wisdom for governments. By making the case for debt spending in times of recession (and the virtually ignored case for restricting spending in times of growth), Keynes gave political leaders a license to abandon the requirement of balance. Continue Reading...

July 21, 2017

Did the Reformation lead to ‘economic secularization’?

In his famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber attempted to draw a clear link between the Protestant Reformation and the rise of capitalism, focusing mostly on the Puritans and their (faulty) connections between spiritual significance and economic prosperity. Continue Reading...

July 20, 2017

What motivates America’s new socialists?

Is America having a “socialist moment”? There are currently more people who say they prefer socialism to capitalism (37 percent) than identify as evangelical Christians (32 percent). What is driving people who don’t even know what socialism means to prefer it to free enterprise? Continue Reading...

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